


transliteration

by Siria



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Community: cliche_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-31
Updated: 2009-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyota spent seven years at the Academy learning the subtleties of morphology and syntax, learning sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, learning how to understand what people say and how they say it in four Earth languages and half a dozen alien tongues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	transliteration

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [cliche_bingo](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/) challenge for the prompt 'Rescue Me: Damsels (and others) in distress'. Thanks to [Cate](http://sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com/) for betaing.

Nyota spent seven years at the Academy learning the subtleties of morphology and syntax, learning sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, learning how to understand what people say and how they say it in four Earth languages and half a dozen alien tongues. She aced every course she took there and can say _nuqneH_ as easily as she can _habari_, but what makes her an expert linguist, what makes her worthy of her position on the _Enterprise_, isn't her ability to decline prepositions in Old High Vulcan—it's her ability to parse all the things a person can say when they're not uttering a word.

From her vantage point behind a pillar, she listens to the stances the Romulans have adopted, the way they're standing over the prone bodies of the Captain and Chekov. They've each got a hand on the weapons at their belts as if ready for another attack, but Nyota is certain they don't know she's there—the Romulans are standing close to the others, stooping down to inspect them and verify that they really have succeeded in capturing the infamous Jim Kirk, and the set of their shoulders and the lines of their backs says that they think they've accomplished their task. Nyota lets herself smile, just a little, and without looking away from the others she palms her phaser and turns it on.

The cut over her right eye is still bleeding, but she has no time to bandage it, and so she squints against the sensation of the blood running warm down her face, calculates the distance that lies between her and her team and fires. She gets the first Romulan right between the shoulder blades and he falls to the ground with little more than a grunt of surprise, but the second has reflexes as good as Spock's and the return blast he aims at Nyota takes a chunk out of the pillar a split second after she's darted behind its neighbour.

Adrenaline and pain are making her breath come quicker, but it lets her move easily despite the ache in her side and when the Romulan calls her a _nei'rrh_, an irritating distraction which he'll soon be rid of, Nyota grins and fires off a wild shot and yells out _eneh hwau' kllhwnia na imirrhlhhse hwiiy_. It's childish and petty, unprofessional, more Jim's style than Nyota's own, but the snarl of fury on the Romulan's face is worth the obscenity, and with the rest of her crew either unconscious or locked in battle against a Romulan warbird hundreds of kilometres over her head, Nyota figures that someone has to uphold the grand reputation for reckless lunacy which the _Enterprise_'s crew is slowly gaining for itself in the Federation's fleet.

One of her shots hits the Romulan in the kneecap, making him stagger; the next hits him just off-centre in the chest and he falls backward, his weapon falling from his suddenly limp hand to clatter on the polished stone floor. When Nyota limps past him to get to Kirk and Chekov, she sees that his eyes are wide open and staring fixedly at the ceiling, as if he's surprised. She's just kneelt down next to Chekov, who seems to be the first to recover from the stun blast—beneath still-closed lids, she can see his eyes are moving rapidly as they would if he were dreaming, and his left foot just twitched—when the communicator at her hip crackles back into life and Nyota hears Spock's voice for the first time in four standard days.

"Lieutenant Uhura," he says, "Stand by to beam aboard the _Enterprise_. Please advise if you require further assistance before transportation."

His words are perfectly dispassionate, a model of Vulcan calm, but Nyota can hear the tremor that lies just below the surface, the meaning that lies beneath meaning. _It's okay to be worried_, she wants to tell him, _I was scared too_; but this is an open frequency and Nyota is a professional and so she settles for saying, "No assistance required, Commander."

There is a pause that lasts no more than a second, in which the inflection of Spock's voice tells her that he has exhaled. "Dr McCoy is standing by in the transporter room," he says before he cuts the connection, and as the light coalesces around her, Nyota smiles and closes her eyes and lets herself be silent; there is, after all, a power to be found there as well.


End file.
